d his hands together.

A cloud of smoke was pouring out from the windows of the building across
the court-yard, whence a dull ruddy glow flashed and flickered. Strange
men were running here and there with flaming torches, and the now
continuous shrieking of women pierced the air.

Just beneath the window lay the figure of a man half naked and face
downward upon the stones. Then suddenly Otto cried out in fear and
horror, for, as he looked with dazed and bewildered eyes down into the
lurid court-yard beneath, a savage man, in a shining breast-plate and
steel cap, came dragging the dark, silent figure of a woman across the
stones; but whether she was dead or in a swoon, Otto could not tell.

And every moment the pulsing of that dull red glare from the windows of
the building across the court-yard shone more brightly, and the glare
from other flaming buildings, which Otto could not see from his window,
turned the black, starry night into a lurid day.

Just then the door of the room was burst open, and in rushed poor old
Ursela, crazy with her terror. She flung herself down upon the floor and
caught Otto around the knees. "Save me!" she cried, "save me!" as though
the poor, pale child could be of any help to her at such a time. In the
passageway without shone the light of torches, and the sound of loud
footsteps came nearer and nearer.

And still through all the din sounded continually the clash and clang
and clamor of the great alarm bell.

The red light flashed into the room, and in the doorway stood a tall,
thin figure clad from head to foot in glittering chain armor. From
behind this fierce knight, with his dark, narrow, cruel face, its
deep-set eyes glistening in the light of the torches, crowded six or
eight savage, low-browed, brutal men, who stared into the room and
at the white-faced boy as he stood by the window with the old woman
clinging to his knees and praying to him for help.

"We have cracked the nut and here is the kernel," said one of them who
stood behind the rest, and thereupon a roar of brutal laughter went up.
But the cruel face of the armed knight never relaxed into a smile;
he strode into the room and laid his iron hand heavily upon the boy's
shoulder. "Art thou the young Baron Otto?" said he, in a harsh voice.

"Aye," said the lad; "but do not kill me."

The knight did not answer him. "Fetch the cord hither," said he, "and
drag the old witch away."

It took two of them to loosen poor old